Feature Channels: Surgery

• share
• favorite_border

High-risk patients undergoing a coronary procedure such as placement of a stent who electively received an intra-aortic balloon pump (a device that can help improve blood flow) prior to the procedure did not experience a significantly lower overall rate of events such as heart attack, revascularization or death, according to a study in the August 25 issue of JAMA.

• share
• favorite_border

A study published in the October 2010 issue of Anesthesiology is among the first to show that the quality of immediate postoperative care of orthopedic surgery patients has important effects on patients’ long-term cardiac outcomes.

• share
• favorite_border

Researchers have developed an improved coating technique that could strengthen the connection between titanium joint-replacement implants and a patients’ own bone. The coated implants were fixed in place more than twice as securely as the current medical standard of uncoated plugs.

• share
• favorite_border

A pediatric urologist at UT Southwestern Medical Center has pioneered a successful surgical procedure for young girls who have absent or malformed vaginas, a condition that affects about one in 4,000 females.

• share
• favorite_border

Contradicting previous study results, insertion of a sponge that contains the antibiotic gentamicin at the time of surgical closure following cardiac surgery did not reduce the rate of sternal wound infections after 3 months, compared to patients who did not receive the intervention, according to a study in the August 18 issue of JAMA.

• share
• favorite_border

A new optical imaging technique described in the journal Review of Scientific Instruments holds the potential to greatly improve angioplasty, a surgery commonly performed to treat patients with a partially or completely blocked coronary artery that restricts blood flow to the heart.

• share
• favorite_border

Surgeons at the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine have achieved what is believed to be the nation’s first stomach reduction via the mouth. The novel weight loss procedure, known as a sleeve gastrectomy, reduces the stomach to 20 percent of its original size.

• share
• favorite_border

Between 2000 and 2006, the proportion of patients who died in the hospital after having heart bypass surgery fell from 42 to 24 deaths per 1,000 admissions.

• share
• favorite_border

One of the challenges of prostate cancer surgery is removing the cancer-affected gland without side effects. The procedure is estimated to cause long-term sexual dysfunction in half of men.

• share
• favorite_border

The first of its kind, the study examined records for almost 29,000 patients with diabetes, ages 18-64, and compared health and risk factors for those who had seen podiatrists to those who had not.

• share
• favorite_border

Age alone should not determine surgical risk in a person age 80 or over, according to expert commentary from Mark Katlic, M.D., director of Thoracic Surgery at Geisinger Wyoming Valley Medical Center in Wilkes-Barre, Pa.

• share
• favorite_border

Lack of understanding and apprehension about anesthesia may lead as many as one in four patients to postpone surgery according to the Vital Health Report, a quarterly health survey of Americans released today by the American Society of Anesthesiologists (ASA).

• share
• favorite_border

A newer, less invasive method of heart valve replacement shows promise, but research is needed to understand its potential risks and benefits.

• share
• favorite_border

Endovascular and open interventions for recurrent superficial femoral artery disease studied.

• share
• favorite_border

For patients with moderate pain after foot surgery, the cyclo-oxygenase 2 (COX-2) inhibitor drug etoricoxib provides better pain relief with fewer side effects than the opioid drug tramadol, concludes a study in the August issue of Anesthesia & Analgesia, official journal of the International Anesthesia Research Society (IARS).

• share
• favorite_border

Surgeons at the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine continue to advance minimally-invasive surgery for cancer patients by reducing the number of abdominal incisions from approximately six to a single small incision.

• share
• favorite_border

Pancreas surgery specialist Charles J. Yeo, M.D., Samuel D. Gross Professor and Chair, Department of Surgery at Jefferson Medical College of Thomas Jefferson University, and Co-Director of the Pancreatic, Biliary Tract and Related Cancer Center at Thomas Jefferson University Hospital, recently performed his 1,000th Whipple procedure (pancreaticoduodenectomy).

• share
• favorite_border

An examination of hospital complication rates of bariatric surgery for more than 15,000 patients in Michigan finds that the frequency of serious complications is relatively low and is inversely associated with hospital and surgeon procedural volume, according to a study in the July 28 issue of JAMA.

• share
• favorite_border

Stacey Berner, M.D., medical director of the Hand Center at Northwest Hospital in Randallstown, MD, has become the first surgeon in America to perform a revolutionary new robotic hand surgery.

• share
• favorite_border

A review of scientific studies that compares two treatments for preventing strokes due carotid artery disease provides no clear answer on which treatment is better, a UT Southwestern Medical Center physician reports in an editorial in today’s issue of the Archives of Internal Medicine.

• share
• favorite_border

A Mount Sinai School of Medicine study has found that patients often exhibit a significant decrease in weight and body mass index (BMI) after undergoing knee or hip replacement surgery (arthroplasty). The study is the first of its type to correct for the annual increase in BMI typically found in North Americans between the ages of 29 to 73 years. The study was recently published in Orthopedics.

• share
• favorite_border

The Methodist DeBakey Heart & Vascular Center today opened the country’s most advanced hybrid, robotic operating room. The new suite integrates advanced robotics, imaging and navigation with surgery to offer patients the least invasive and safest surgical and interventional treatments for cardiovascular disease.

• share
• favorite_border

A 13-member surgical team from the Methodist DeBakey Heart & Vascular Center completed the first phase of training to implant a new total artificial heart designed to completely replace the heart’s function while the patient waits for a heart transplant. Methodist will be the first hospital in Texas to offer this total heart replacement.

• share
• favorite_border

New research shows that sepsis is 10 times more common and more lethal than other more well-known surgical complications including heart attacks and blood clots.

• share
• favorite_border

Athletes with bone and cartilage knee damage who are treated with transplanted tissue can return to sports after surgery, according to a study reported at the annual meeting of the American Orthopaedic Society for Sports Medicine.

• share
• favorite_border

New research shows that using robotics reduces blood vessel trauma during minimally invasive procedures to repair diseased arteries. Research results were presented at the Society for Vascular Surgery‘s 2010 Vascular Annual Meeting in Boston.

• share
• favorite_border

Athletes who undergo arthroscopic surgery for a mechanical disorder of the hip have a good chance of being able to return to their sport at a high level of competition, according to a study that will be presented at the annual meeting of the AOSSM.

• share
• favorite_border

A newly funded study is set to determine whether waiting two minutes to clamp a newborn’s umbilical cord after delivery could improve how well he or she recovers from corrective heart surgery.

• share
• favorite_border

Leading healthcare publisher Lippincott Williams & Wilkins (LWW) today announced the publication of Operative Techniques in Orthopaedic Surgery, a new, four-volume reference that provides start-to-finish guidance for virtually every contemporary orthopaedic surgery technique. LWW is part of Wolters Kluwer Health, a leading provider of information and business intelligence for students, professionals, and pharmacy.

• share
• favorite_border

Eye cancer patients must enter treatment knowing that their surgeon's strategy to kill the deadly tumor with radiation may also sacrifice their eyesight. Now, UCLA researchers have discovered that a commonly used substance called silicon oil shields the eye and appears to protect vision in patients undergoing radiation therapy for ocular melanoma.

• share
• favorite_border

Scientists are using the engineering technology behind the creation of high-performance aircraft components to design 3-D models for the replacement of delicate and complex facial bones lost to cancer surgery or trauma.

• share
• favorite_border

While most knee replacements will function well for years, patients should be aware of the signs of failure—including increased pain or decreased function—that may require a corrective procedure known as revision total knee replacement, if necessary.

• share
• favorite_border

A surgery developed at Hospital for Special Surgery can improve patient outcomes in individuals with severe adult flat foot deformity, a problem that is increasingly being seen in hospitals across the country.

• share
• favorite_border

As part of the only U.S. prospective multicenter clinical trial to compare natural orifice translumenal endoscopic surgery (NOTES) to laparoscopy, surgeons at the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine have performed the trial’s first oral gallbladder removal.

• share
• favorite_border

Injuries to the rotator cuff are treatable, but it is unclear which treatment option – surgery or nonsurgical treatments such as exercise or medication – is best.

• share
• favorite_border

Only a small fraction of transplant centers nationwide are willing to accept and transplant deceased-donor kidneys that they perceive as less than perfect, leading to lengthy, organ-damaging delays as officials use a one-by-one approach to find a willing taker. Now, Johns Hopkins researchers have designed a formula they say can predict which donor kidneys are most likely to be caught in that process, a method that could potentially stop thousands of usable kidneys each year from being discarded because it took too long for them to be transplanted. Previous studies have shown such kidneys can extend the life of certain dialysis patients, if allocated and transplanted in a timely manner.

• share
• favorite_border

A 5-month-old New York infant received a lifesaving liver transplant for advanced liver failure diagnosed following her birth 10 weeks premature. One of the smallest babies ever to successfully receive a liver transplant, she weighed 4 pounds at the time of the surgery.

• share
• favorite_border

Nick Van Erp’s high school sports career ended prematurely when he tore the anterior cruciate ligament in his knee during a spring lacrosse game his freshman year of high school, leading him to two failed repair surgeries before coming to the University of Michigan for his third. His story is not unique-18,000 to 35,000 ACL repairs will fail a year, requiring additional surgery which is more complicated, less successful and requires a longer rehabilitation period. Physicians at the University of Michigan say multiple factors attribute to a failed repair and they caution patients to inquire about their surgeons’ previous experience with the procedure.

• share
• favorite_border

Foot and ankle surgeons are warning patients of the risks of "foot facelifts."

• share
• favorite_border

A study by investigators at Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine published in this week’s issue of JAMA found that public hospital comparison data reported by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services does not accurately correlate with a patient’s risk for surgical postoperative infection.

• share
• favorite_border

An analysis of data on adherence to surgical care improvement measures finds that when analyzed as a composite infection-prevention score, the improvement measures were associated with a lower probability of postoperative infection. However, adherence to individual measures – the format of publicly reported performance data – was not associated with a significantly lower risk of infection, according to a study in the June 23/30 issue of JAMA.

• share
• favorite_border

Surgeons are studying a new way to make kidney donation safer, less invasive and almost scar free for women by using a new technique that removes kidneys transvaginally.

• share
• favorite_border

One year after weight loss surgery with laparoscopic gastric banding, extremely obese adults demonstrate not only better physical health but also improved psychological health, a new study shows. The results will be presented Monday at The Endocrine Society’s 92nd Annual Meeting in San Diego.

• share
• favorite_border

Restoring people’s health and returning them to their daily lives as soon as possible is the goal following any surgery. When a person’s ability to eat and speak is affected, as with cancer in the mouth, surgery is particularly disruptive, creating a greater challenge. A one-step surgery can remove cancerous tissue and reconstruct bone and teeth functionality immediately, positively impacting the patient’s quality of life.

• share
• favorite_border

A new Cochrane review finds that exercise programs help patients recover shoulder movement and minimize loss of arm or shoulder function after breast cancer surgery.

• share
• favorite_border

Head and neck cancer surgeons at UT Southwestern Medical Center performed the area’s first transoral robotic surgery (TORS), a recently approved minimally invasive no-scar procedure to remove tumors in the throat.

• share
• favorite_border

Surgeons at the University of Illinois at Chicago report the first successful robotic kidney transplant in a morbidly obese patient.

• share
• favorite_border

Major amputation is often selected over infrainguinal bypass in patients with severe systemic comorbidities because of a presumed decrease in risk of perioperative morbidity and mortality. To investigate this presumption, researchers from the Division of Vascular and Endovascular Surgery at the Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston undertook a risk-adjusted comparison of early postoperative morbidity and mortality of high-risk patients undergoing infrainguinal bypass and major amputation. Results of this study will be presented today at the Society of Vascular Surgery’s 64th Vascular Annual Meeting.

• share
• favorite_border

Patients with abdominal aortic aneurysms (AAAs) of less than 5.5 cm have no significant differences in clinical outcomes after endovascular repair (EVAR) than those with larger AAAs according to data from a five-year prospective clinical trial setting. The researchers maintain their recommendation that small aneurysms should not be treated surgically. Details of this study were presented at the 64th Vascular Annual Meeting presented by the Society for Vascular Surgery.

• share
• favorite_border

A regional quality improvement effort aimed at increasing the use of preoperative beta-blocker (BB) usage to help prevent postoperative myocardial infarction (POMI) was revealed today at the 64th Vascular Annual Meeting® presented by the Society for Vascular Surgery®.